The story is set in about 1800 in what is now Indiana on the Wobbish River.

That the Wobbish is the Wabash, reveals one way in which the author alters fact to create a fantastic setting. In most of the details of the frontier, Card presents American life as it was in the early nineteenth century, but this is not the frontier students learn about in school.

In Card's history, the Puritan Revolution in seventeenth-century England has been successful. The Puritan domination of England during the colonial period has forced all people with magical knacks to leave England for the New World. The Puritans believe that magical powers come only from Satan. One result of this change in history is that there was no American Revolution; America remains a group of varyingly independent territories. In this America, Benjamin Franklin is the most important hero, and William Blake, the English...